This first tutorial with Jonathan way surpassed my expectations. The main achievement was an academic direction for my study proposal: How artists past and present have adopted new technologies in their art practice and why, then use this analysis to contextualise the extension of my traditional life drawing into the digital World.

We reviewed my work so far: 7000 words on my WordPress blog (even I was surprised when I totaled them up) essentially writing up what I have done in my first 4 weeks on the MA; A first (incomplete) draft of my Study Proposal; A very simple mind map of my work plan showing completed work and tasks for the next 4 weeks (shown below); Illustrations demonstrating the first three of the five making projects for my first year and final exhibitions.

My first three making projects are: To show my starting point, an existing charcoal drawing of the model (Vanessa) who I am working with for the other two projects; A large floor standing life painting in an Art Nouveau style with snippets of the model’s narrative in her own voice played when different parts of the work are touched by the viewer; A large sculpture of the model made from sheets of MDF angled through the sculpture, and painted with light (projection painting) using a video on a continuous loop (possibly of the model going about her daily life – she is a classical dancer).

My aim is to bring my life drawing to life: It is no longer a static object to be admired in silence. The model is part of the work not just the object of it and the viewer can engage with it.

Jonathan surprisingly said that from what he saw he was confident that I could achieve the first 3 of my projects . So my hidden thought coming back to his immediate reaction to my first study proposal presentation (see earlier blog) ‘Terry you have 5 MA’s there’ looks like Jonathan believes that I can do three. I wonder then does that get me 3 MA’s?! No need to answer that one. However, I said that to achieve the thrust of my study proposal I really need to complete the first four.

I was completely upfront and said while I was confident about the making side of my MA, I do not have an academic background in art or any art related qualification apart from garden design: Therefore my weakest area is determining lines of enquiry for the academic work necessary to contextualise my practice. As you can see from my opening remarks we pretty much resolved this even though it may need a little refinement. So I will start by examining the Futurist movement. The advice that Jonathan gave me is summed up in this recording (7 minutes – Please turn your sound to Maximum).

Now I need to make a start on research so that I can flesh it out for my study proposal submission on 3 November.